Remote-mount version of the BKR9500 multiband P25 mobile radio is designed for quick installation and is set to be shipped commercially early next year
By Donny Jackson, Editor,Urgent Communications
BK Technologies recently introduced the BKR9500, a multiband P25 mobile radio that is scheduled to be shipped commercially early next year, according to a company official.
Senior vice president and general manager of BK Technologies’ LMR division, Steve Theisen said the BKR9500 is designed to address a technology trend cited by many public-safety customers—particularly those agencies that already have adopted BKR9000 multiband portable devices.
“As we see it, there’s this market shift from single-band to multiband [radios],” Theisen said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “This addresses that. It expands our ability to meaningfully address the market as customers begin embracing our multiband portable solution. There are some customers who are waiting [to migrate to the multiband portable radio], because they are waiting for that [mobile-radio] companion—they want their mobiles and portables to be of one source. This helps to address that.”
BK Technologies CEO John Suzuki echoed this sentiment about the new multiband mobile radio, which was showcased at the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) that was conducted last week in Indianapolis.
“The BKR9500 adds to our next-generation multiband platform and expands our opportunity to capture a larger share of customer spend as agencies transition from single band to multiband radios,” Suzuki said in a prepared statement. “Initial customer feedback has been strong, and we expect this product to drive backlog growth in anticipation of shipments in early 2027.
“With approximately one in-vehicle radio deployed for every two handheld units, we see a meaningful opportunity to expand our addressable market across existing and new customers as we better serve first responders.”
Theisen said the initial version of the BKR9500 is a remote-mount version of the multiband mobile radio that is designed to let existing BK Technologies customers install it with relative ease.
“It’s a drop-in solution, so for those customers that have KNG Series [mobile] radios—and we have a substantial number out there, because we’ve been building that radio for something like 14 years—it makes it easy for them to drop the multiband in place,” Theisen said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It’s going to utilize the same mounting, the same connections for power and antenna, the same control heads, so it’s a very simple, friction-free solution for those who want to upgrade from single-band to multiband.
“The initial offering for the BKR9500 is going to be in the remote-mount unit only, so it utilizes the same control heads as the KNG. That adds to that friction-free transition for those who want to migrate from single-band to multiband.”
A dash-mount version of the new multiband mobile radio with a new control head likely will not be commercially available until sometime in 2028, but the remote-mount version of the BKR9500 is expected to address a significant portion of the market as soon as possible, Theisen said.
“We thought it was important to get the product to market quickly,” Theisen said. “We focused on the remote transceiver first, because that just makes it very simple. In fact, for customers who are going to migrate [to multiband], it gives them the ability to buy that transceiver, program them up, and have them sitting on the shelf—ready to go.
“When they bring vehicles in, it’s just [takes] three connections and some thumb screws just to drop the radio into place. If they had radios pre-programmed, it would literally take minutes to swap the radio out.”
And public-safety agencies purchasing the BKR9500 do not necessarily have to pay to operationalize the multiband capability immediately, according to Theisen.
“A single-band configuration of this radio is similarly priced to our KNG Series and allows for growth and expansion into additional bands, because it is field-upgradable,” he said. “We’re making the technology more accessible by making it more affordable, easy to migrate from our single-band solution, and it is a more-affordable solution to the industry leader.”
Theisen said the BKR9500 multiband mobile radio is smaller than the company’s KNG Series mobile radios, but most of the physical attributes of the BKR9500 should feel familiar to existing customers.
“We do recognize the importance of that form factor being familiar to the customer,” Theisen said. “We recognize that there are certain design features of our KNG radios that are important not only to our customers but any public-safety customers.
“We stick with very tactile-feeling knobs for volume and channel [selection], instead of using ramps up and down, which are slow and cumbersome to public-safety users. We’re committed to staying with those general features of the form of our controls. We’re improving on a few things—the display connections and things of that nature will improve.”
